Augur Platform Enjoys Rapid Growth in Debut Week

Augur, the prediction platform launched on the ethereum blockchain this week, has enjoyed a rapid growth in betting volumes over the first seven days.

According to figures from Prediction.Global, there was a significant ‘spike’ in betting volumes, or ‘open interest’ over the period, which showed a growth of 51% in betting activity since the app’s first day of business earlier in the week.

Over $325,000 was wagered to Monday alone, as the app briefly rose to become the fifth most popular on the ethereum network. As one of the first applications of its kind to be built for ethereum, Augur is being seen as a case study for both gambling on the blockchain, and for large-scale apps powered by the ethereum blockchain.

Augur has been hailed as a significant development for ethereum, and a future facility for crowdsourcing human expertise and judgement to determine likely predictions. While the platform is still very much in its infancy, the first week saw over 3,000 ETH traded on the platform, with over 1,000 ETH traded in the last 24 hours of the available data.

For the time being, the most popular prediction on Augur is “Will price of Ethereum exceed $500 at the end of 2018?”, with 79% of users predicting ‘yes’ at the time of writing. There are also a number of other predictions, including some less serious questions, like one focusing on proof of the existence of God by January 2020.

Still, these predictions demonstrate the capabilities of the platform, and show what could be possible as it continues to gain traction.

Ryan Berckmans of Predictions.Global said early trading had shown strong betting activity, market creation and innovation in the predictions market.

“We’ve seen terrific US dollar volume, terrific market creation growth, innovation in the types of markets created and their characteristics in terms of how folks are starting to use the platform.”

He also flagged the particular example of a user, Liquidity Health, which has created markets based on the spread of diseases in humans, such as the Nipah virus, as a means of predicting future epidemics.